


The Door That Opened Was The One Next Door

by Alex_deMorra (Ergo_Sum)



Series: Fence Sitter [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ergo_Sum/pseuds/Alex_deMorra
Summary: Chapter 5: Fence SitterMicah is weeks away from transferring schools after that afternoon with Kevin Muldine when one of Kevin's gang stumbles onto Micah at practice at his last safe space - the community center.





	1. Chapter 1

The bouquet of sweat and shellac mingled with the eleventh album track of America is Dying Slowly, which blasted — possibly too loudly — out of the community room speakers and into the room where I took advantage of rare unsupervised minutes on the rings.

Coach had stepped out of the room to take a phone call. Another one. No doubt, he would be in a funk even before he returned.

He _was_ helping me go from an Iron Cross into a headstand without swinging from one position into the other. But that was damn near impossible when I couldn’t even get the first part right. It’s been two years of working on this stupid move and it still isn’t right. It won’t be after today either. I’m too worn out and _maybe_ had enough in me to go once more through the routine I wanted to do for the upcoming fall regionals.

The last few minutes of practice were always the worst because it meant that anything good that was going to happen that day had already happened. Since practice was one of the only legit reasons for me to stay out of the house, I tended to find ways to hang out here for longer. For example, what I really wanted to do right now was to close the door, turn out all the lights and lie down like a starfish on the super thick, cushy pad and let the music roll over and through me until I felt like a human again. If I were a bit more brave, I’d do it.

It feels like forever since that afternoon, the one that left me in alternating states of being calm and being numb. I thought I would never have another good friend again but then I found one. His name is Gregor Samsa and he lives within two-hundred scant, dog-eared pages in a book whose spine is small enough to fit under my pillow. He whispered things to me. Like last night. He had this great idea for sleeping longer and forgetting about all the nonsense.

I agreed.

But I had to get up to go to school anyway.

After that day, Tyrell hadn’t come over, nor had he called. But I did see him hanging out around my house a few times. He was always on his bike, straddled and ready to take off at a moment’s notice. We observed each other and pretended we didn’t. I wanted to say something but I didn’t know what, especially since there wasn’t anything I could say that would change a thing between us.

I hated that.

And I hated being at home.

And I hated being at school.

And I really didn’t have friends these days. Other than Gregor, of course. And I guess, maybe, Coach.

I really didn’t know what I’d be up to if he hadn’t offered me private sessions in exchange for being his assistant for the after school and Saturday morning kiddie classes.

These kids. Total screwballs. There was no how, no way I would have predicted that helping them with their magic tumbling acts would have affected me like a dried up sponge sitting in a puddle. It was enough to carry me into my own practice but I had to make it happen quickly since the feeling itself had a limited shelf life of something like an hour and only lasted if I didn’t leave the premises.

I considered how I was nearing the dregs of that feeling for the night, I thought that I’d better get on with this one last run through of this routine.

This part was hard to do without Coach here but I muscled up to starting position with my legs hung straight down and my arms locked. From here, I swung into a handstand, the total opposite from where I started: legs straight pointing up, arms locked pointing down. The only thing that was similar between those two positions was that I kept my body as straight as a board.

I’m reminded how Gregor and I talked the other day about how music is this thing like air or food and how it should be considered less like a want and more like a need. I thought about it because at this very moment, Prince Po and Pharoahe Monch animated me as if I were a puppet in a dream. They moved me as they harmonized and rhymed over the heavy beat over waves of lounge-type melodies over deep voiced women that wove in and out of the background, and reminded me every single time this song played that the greatest thing was life (even though it’s filled with pain, struggle and strife).

I had procured the album courtesy of my new and improved, CD-rated, five-finger discount and kept it in the gymnastics room, tucked behind the stereo system in the storage closet that also housed floor and landing mats. After I got it, I anxiously waited for weeks before put it on. When I did, I kinda made a big deal about claiming that someone must have accidentally left it here. I even put a note in the lost and found box telling whoever may have been looking for it that I found it and if they wanted it back, all they had to do was to leave a note with the front desk.

No one came forward. And strangely, even though I made up the person who lost the CD, I was worried that someone might actually show up and take it away. That’s some deranged thinking, right? I would have been worried about it anyway (because I really didn’t want to get caught for stealing things) but the fact that it has been one of the best things I’ve ever lifted made losing it a bigger risk than ever. Really. I think it might have saved my life a few times. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Here’s how it moved me. One accent at the end of a word out and I stopped. Like red-light, stop, hard, still, like a rock. Unmovable. Even though I was several feet off the ground. Even though I was hanging by two cables, which are inherently wobbly.

Their next set of rhymes kicked at my feet, and cycled me in a big, swooping wheel forward. Stop. And then another one going backward until again. Stop. And then I eased down into position. In plank. Facing down. And I was a solid made-of-bronze, check-fucking-mate-fucking-perfect Maltese Cross for the first time in my life.

Coach came back into the room. Just in time because I really wanted him to see that. He placed his footsteps intentionally over the wood floor heel-to-toe and heel-to-toe until they stopped with a definitive squeak of rubber at the edge of the mat. I kept my eyes closed, staying inside myself for the duration. I ended the routine with an easy, simple flyaway and faced forward in a clean land before I opened my eyes.

I almost collapsed.

It wasn’t Coach.

It was Rory Evans. He stood there, grueling in his self-possession, and he gave me a long, slow, loud, harsh, baleful, hateful golf clap that was about the most ominous sound I recalled ever hearing. Previously, I’d only ever seen him in the company of his thug leader Kevin Muldine. I wouldn’t have imaged that he’d be worse by himself but he was.

“Micah _Swallows_. Well, this is a nice surprise. You’ve been avoiding us at school, man. My _feelings_ were getting hurt. ” he crooned as each syllable dripped with emotional farce. Had I been with someone (anyone!), I might have been amused with his dramatics that were, in all honesty, both amateur and boorish. However, since I was an audience of one and also an audience of one that had experience of getting smashed up in his presence, I was closer to shitting in my pants than I was to laughing. He persisted, “I didn’t know you came here, too. We’ll have to spend a bit more time together, won’t we?”

No.

Fuck, no.

I stepped to the right side of the mat in order to avoid him but he got there first. I backed up and aimed for the left side but he got there first. He was faster on the wood floor than I was since I sunk with each step into the thick landing mat. I surveyed the scene to determine which set of scenarios would like up in my getting my ass kicked with the least amount of damage.

The ass-kicking itself was inevitable. To start, I was exhausted and had nothing left to fight with. Second, I was trapped. Third, he was a mean fucker who seemed determined to make this happen and I didn’t even know why.

I knew why _he_ thought it had to happen: I was a pussy. End of story.

What I didn’t get — and probably wouldn’t get for all of eternity — is this. If he had already proven himself to be stronger than me, if he has proven that he’s willing to (repeatedly) smash me into the ground, if he has already ended my relationship with my best friend, if he has already pissed on my confidence, if I already didn’t have anything left, then what was the appeal of even coming after me?

It’s thoughts like this that really got me into trouble because what I should have been thinking about is how I could have gone on the offense instead of just standing there while he grabbed at my ankle and pulled quickly, which caused me to lose my balance. One second I was standing, the next second, I was on my back with all the breath knocked out of me. Fortunately, my instincts were working even if my brain wasn’t. I was already in a sideways fetal position and bringing my arm up just in time to see the slow-motion pull back of his fist as it prepared, once again, to meet my face.

Something stopped him.

I reluctantly opened one of my eyes to see Rory turned toward a guy standing door who was older than my dad and shorter than my mom, with the whites of his eyes red from the sun, crispy ochre skin and, thinning, austerely cut black hair. This guy, like Rory, was wearing a loose white t-shirt and stretchy white pants that would look like baseball pants if they didn’t have bell bottoms and long ropes that hung from their belt loops.

Behind this guy were two other guys that were my age or a little bit older and they were in the same garb. They flanked the older guy like body guards, though there was something that made me think that despite all appearances, it wouldn’t be him that needed protection.

“ _Abutre_ ,” he said flatly and he dipped his chin and tipped his head to the side to indicate that Rory should get out of my room and into the one next door.

He swiveled just enough to let Rory glide past and then he rotated back to lean on the door jam with his arms crossed as he and the guys behind him seized me up, their thoughts inscrutable even as they came to some agreement on what they saw before they walked off without another word to me.

I was shaken, I was shaking, and I didn’t know how long it took for my heart to drop from my throat back into my chest. It was long enough that I seriously considered taking off without saying goodbye to Coach.

Rory Fucking Evans just invaded my last safe space. I didn’t know what to do. This was absolutely, terrifically catastrophic for my well-being.

I sat on the side of the landing mat with my hands in my hair and my elbows on my knees and I listened to the room next door coming alive in the form of a herd of pants-wearing elephants with ropes that trailed behind them as they ran.

I didn’t move until Coach returned, which he did without a clue as to what transpired. I didn’t tell him either. I’d already been admitted into a new school and only a few more weeks that I had to go to my old campus. I doubted that I could avoid Rory and his stupid gang for a few weeks but it would be so much worse if I squealed on him.

Even though I didn’t say anything, Coach scanned me with concern and he put his hand on my forehead like my mom did when I was little. “You look a bit flush, Micah. Drink some water and if you need me to, we can throw your bike in the back of my car.” I had some water but I wasn’t going to give up my last moments of my daily freedom for anything.

When he was convinced that I would be able to survive the bike ride home, we broke down the equipment in the room. I turned off the stereo and put the CD in its secret place tucked behind the right side of the console, then I grabbed my bag and watched coach disappear into the office at about the same time that one of the guys in white found me.

He was one of the two who flanked the guy in the doorway. His dark hair was tied back and he wore a blue rope for a belt and he was definitely at least a few years older than me. High school age. Upper class. The kind of guy that when he came up to me it required a mandatory look around the room to check and double check: _Who, me? Are you talking to me?_

In this case, the answer was yes.

He.

Was talking.

To me.

And he said, “My uncle wants to know if you want to come watch the roda.” That last word sounded like _ho-dah_ , a kind of non-word stuck part way between a hoe down and a toga. In my head, this wording completely conformed with my visions singing, rhythmic clapping and twanging, percussive instruments that were heard through the walls after they (as previously mentioned herd of elephants) stopped running in circles around the room.

He raised one eyebrow at me like a question mark, half-smiled and turned back to the room that I was supposed to follow him to. The effect of that eyebrow (or maybe it was the smile…or possibly the pants…it might have been the pants) was as good as if he’d tied that blue rope around me and dragged me behind him.

The arrangement of people in the actual room was different than I pictured. Everyone stood in a circle stood and they faced both the center of the circle and simultaneously — don’t ask me how — toward the part of the circle where three people played instruments. The ones that made the loudest and the most twangy noise looked like long bows with an opened up coconut attached near the bottom. A few others were shaking tambourines. All this was going on while two people wearing white were inside the circle dancing or fighting or …

“They’re playing,” blue rope guy said, unprompted, as he tipped up his lips on one side of his mouth in a half-smile like he just made a joke and maybe I was supposed to be laughing with him.

The people in the circle changed out one at a time and it seemed to be a rule that there would only always be a pair of people inside the circle because when one person hopped in, the one who had been in longest time had to leave. At the same time, the person who’d been in the longest couldn’t leave until someone else hopped in. And hopped was the exact right word because one did not simply stroll into the middle of the circle, nor did one saunter or walk or parade. You got into that circle with feet in the air or not at all.

The players moved like crabs in a mid-beach skirmish, ducking and dodging with kicks to the front and sweeps of their legs from around the back and they made disfigured cartwheels where they came up standing with their elbows already bent to cover their faces.

The roda gained momentum. It became more energetic. The players moved more quickly. The increased pace of the clapping and music kept up with the dancing or maybe it was the other way around so that the music was driving the players to go faster and to become more daring. The longer the play went on, the more energetic it got.

We stayed in the back, me and blue rope guy. He patiently continued to answer my questions while we held up the wall together. And while I tried my best to pay attention to what he was saying instead of the way the corners of his deep brown eyes tilted up at the edges or at how his triceps cut the back of his arms or the way he smelled warm like an oak tree in the late summer afternoon.

Blue rope guy jerked his chin toward the new person entering the circle — Rory Evans.

 _Kah-thunk_. That was my heart. It jumped back into my throat. Again.

Not because I liked him or anything. It’s just that I had forgotten he was there and it occurred to me that by my being in the same room with him voluntarily, I might have ensured my early death even before I got the chance to start life again at my new school.

As soon as he was engaged in play, the little old guy, blue rope guy’s uncle, entered and faced him. The music changed. Something was about to go down. It occurred to me that this moment might be the reason I was invited to come here in the first place.

And that freaked me out.

“My uncle,” the guy explained, “that’s the _Mestre_ , he wasn’t happy with what happened back there.” He tilted his head back to indicate that _there_ meant the room with rings. “He doesn’t like bullies. That’s not what we do here.”

The _Mestre_ (I was assuming it was okay that I called him that) baited Rory. He taunted him, “ _Abutre_ , you’re such a big man these days,” and walked backward, hardly bothering to cover or block or protect himself like everyone else has done so far. “Come get me. Show me how you need to be, _valent_ _ã_ _o_ ”

Those who made up the circle all seemed to know that what was up. There was a feeling that crept up in the room, something electric, something dangerous. I had never particularly wanted to be in Rory Evans shoes - like ever - but I was very glad _not_ to be Rory Evans at this particular moment. I just hoped that it would be okay to be in my shoes after I had witnessed whatever I was about to witness.

“ _Venha me pegar._ ” The _Mestre_ slid a foot in a smooth, lazy half-circle in front of him and it caught Rory’s ankle and it caused Rory to teeter to the side of his foot. He stayed upright. Just. The barbs went on, “ _Mostre-me o homem grande, eh?”_

I could barely hear the _Mestre_ over the background sound of the song people that people sang and clapped. They sang words that I could barely make out that sounded like the ones I had seen on flyers around the center ( _Bahia_ , _Angola_ , _Capoeira_ ) and words thatmade their way into my head simply by living in a southern border city ( _que, para, quando, aprende_ ) but it didn’t sound quite right. The song transitioned into another one.

_Jogar capoeira de angola_

_Não é brincadeira_

“That’s not…Spanish,” I reckoned. I said it without really knowing if I was right about that.

“Portuguese,” said the blue rope guy.

Rory kicked in this ineffective roundhouse maneuver but the _Mestre_ swept his foot again, just like before, and brought him down easy, as if it were no problem, barely as much trouble as knocking over a glass of water. “ _Levantar-se, pouco Abutre,”_ the Mestre crowed. He continued moving, always in motion, slowly but lightly, like the tip of a pen.

“What’s he calling Rory?”

“ _Abutre._ Vulture. That’s his capoeira name.”

“Ugh. That’s awful.”

“No one likes their capoeira name. Not until they grow into it anyway. _Mestre Lagarto_ is the best at it. The _best_. He sees people like no one else can. It’s amazing.” 

“What did he name you?”

The blue rope guy answered as the _Mestre_ brought Rory down for the third time, this time with the strength it took to topple a salt shaker. “ _Palhaço._ Clown, joker, all those things. You want to know if I hate it?” he laughed, which made a single crinkle at the corner of his eye and caused his skin stretch around his jaw and his cheek. It sounded like pay-ah-zo, though that still may not have been right. He waited a tick and finally answered his own question, “I hate it so much, man. I really do.”

Rory heaved himself up again, a bit winded and a bit annoyed. I asked, “How long is this going to go on?” 

“Until your _Abutre_ gets it. He wants to keep fighting all night? _Mestre_ can keep fighting all night.”

“He’s not _my_ … whatever, okay? But…um…isn’t that kinda mean what he’s doing?”

“Mean? Nah. It totally sucks to be him right now but he’s doing it for the kid way more than him doing it for you. To get him unstuck. It isn’t good…”

_Thud._

The floor thumped underneath our feet, the reverb of Rory as he fell flat on his back created a small-scale seismic event which caused an upwards jounce of the floor against our feet, which surprised us and momentarily shut us up. Rory was now lying, helpless as a June bug, his arms and feet as they flailed in the air and transitioned into a slow release off to the sides, the first indication that he wanted to give up, which not going to be allowed from the _Mestre_ , who kicked at his foot and said, _“Você desistir tão fácil?”_

This was getting embarrassing. I was embarrassed just being someone who stood by and watched. I wanted whatever this was to end and I felt just as helpless now as I did when I was the one on my back less than an hour ago. I shifted my weight back and forth and glanced up to the guy next to me, whose mouth tightened and arms crossed over his chest.

_“Levante-se. Você não está feito.”_

Rory got up, still defiant and also red-faced and sweaty. He eyes shifted around the room as he searched for support and finding none, pursed his lips together and hunched his shoulders as he prepared for another round.

“Dude. This is wrong. He might be a dick but being a bully to him isn’t the solution,” I pushed off from the wall with more conviction than I felt and didn’t get halfway to the circle before hands made of iron captured me from the back, “Just wait. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me but watch. It’s gonna end soon and it’ll be okay.”

I was getting pissed and tried to shake him off and when I turned back around, the _Mestre’s_ eyes burned into me and seared my feet to the floor. I wasn’t getting any closer and I wasn’t going to be able to stop Rory from going down a seventh, eighth, ninth time.

The white fabric of Rory’s pants vibrated from his knees down. His thigh clenched. Then his hands did the same. And something mysterious happened to his kewpie doll face, like someone smashed it from the inside and all the plastic bits fell away and he was this very real, very vulnerable dude who knew he was getting called on his shit and there was nowhere to run.

At that very moment, _Mestre_ reached around to the back of Rory’s head and pulled him in, forehead to forehead, and he said something so quiet that no one else could hear. Rory acceded with a nod, dipping his chin further, which launched the musicians into a clear finale, ending the music, and ending the play.

The circle disbanded and I stood there, blank-faced, and wondered exactly what just happened while people who had been standing around the circle approached Rory like he was family. They affectionately used his capoeira name (that he probably hated) as they slapped him on the shoulder or pulled him into a one-armed hug in a response that I didn’t understand given the takedown they’d all witnessed. Rory’s head was still bowed when his eyes flashed to me.

He turned away again.

“So…,” started this _Palhaço_ guy , and he stood more upright, which brought my attention to the fact that he was a lot taller than me than I initially thought, “that’s a problem you won’t have to deal with anymore.”

“No, I guess not. Thanks.”

“You also have an open invite to come to a class.”

“What? Why?”

“I think you impressed him.”

“Who?”

“Who? Who. What are you…an owl? _Mestre_ , of course.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t be so sure. He’s good at seeing things and I think he’s noticed you before.”

“Do I have to wear that white outfit?”

“Nah. Not until you get a belt. Maybe come Saturday. More new people come then.”

“Maybe.”

“Okay, maybe.”

I felt the conversation wrapping up between us but I didn’t want to leave him. Maybe I didn’t want to leave the room. I couldn’t tell which. “Do you have a name?

“Yeah, I told you. _Palhaço”_

“No, I mean, what does your mom call you?”

“You kidding me? She’s practically the one that started calling me _Palhaço._ _Mestre_ just made it more official. _”_

“Well, what about your friends? What do they call you?”

_“Palhaço”_

I knew he was just winding me up because each time he said it the glimmer in his eye got more pronounced. “No,” I huffed, “you know what I mean.”

“Oh?” He looked so innocent all of a sudden, “Do I?”

“Yeah, you do. Like, when my teacher takes roll the first day of school, she calls out my name. My real one. Except she says it with my last name first, _Swaeler, Micah_. What … does … your teacher call you?” I felt shy all of a sudden and I hoped that my face didn’t turn red from having asked the question so directly and in a way that implied that I knew him.

“Oh, that’s what you want to know,” he teased. “Well, _he_ calls me Te Waero, Dante _.”_

_Dante._

It sounded like a secret.

_Dante._

It sounded like he looked. Sinful and virtuous. Flexible and unyielding. A mystery and a quest. Bright and handsome and charming and limitless. I was pretty sure that he was the most enthralling person I had seen up close.

“Dante, huh?”

“ _Palhaço_ ”

“I like the name Dante.”

“I like the name _Palhaço._ ”

“Liar. You said you hated it. Besides, you look like a Dante.”

“I act like a _Palhaço,_ ask anyone.” 

I didn’t need to ask anyone what I already saw in front of my own face. Yeah, he might be a joker but there was something else, too.

“Can I call you Dante?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please?”

He squinted his eyes at me and made me wait for it. “Yeah, okay. Only you, though. No one else. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“See you Saturday?”

“Maybe.”

“Nah. That’s not how it goes. See you Saturday?”

“Possibly.”

“You’re killing me here.” He slapped his chest with his open palm and threw his head back, which of course made me glow with ridiculous levels of glee. “Nuh uh. Try again. See you Saturday?”

I waited this time, attempting in vain to stop smiling like an idiot, “Okay. See you Saturday.”

“Great,” he replied and I wanted to think that maybe he wasn’t just happy because he won that little argument. “We’ll see you here on Saturday. Good night, Micah.”

I picked up my pack again and threw it over my shoulder and remembered that I still had to ride my bike home and to get through homework and several days of school before Saturday arrived again.

Still, I took that little bit of happiness and carried it with me and for the first time in months, it felt like I could breathe again.


	2. Chapter 2

One year, five months, two weeks, and three days ago I officially met _Mestre Lagarto_. That was _if_ it could be called an official meeting since we didn’t actually stand face to face and say hello until two days and fourteen hours later after the night of my first roda. In other words, we actually met when I came (as promised) to class that Saturday.

That _would_ have translated to seventy-seven consecutive Wednesdays and seventy-six consecutive Saturdays together if I had continued to attend on a regular basis.

Which I hadn’t.

I hadn’t totally given up on it either. It’s just that there were a lot of things that got in the way of my regular attendance. Like my parents splitting up, my coach getting fired, my new (for me) gymnastics team in high school, my getting grounded a few times and, through some beautifully weird symmetry in the universe, my month of infectious mononucleosis that was most definitively not transmitted through my kissing someone.

Aside from all of these times, I attended class faithfully. I even had a belt (a white one) and proper pants (thanks to _Amante_ and _Camaleao_ for the hand-me-downs).I had improved, despite a persistent confusion in my body about when to do a proper cartwheel for gymnastics and when to use the shape of my _aú,_ which I had previously thought was a sloppy cartwheel, for my own deviant and subversive purposes. 

What I didn’t have was a capoeira name. And I didn’t want to make a big deal about it but it kinda made me feel like I would always be an outsider and it would be lame to have brought it up because that’s something that wasn’t done. I mean, even Júnior got his name ( _Colher_ ) and he started coming to class almost a whole year after I did. 

Granted, his life at the time was made up of at least seven levels of hot mess. He had just come out from juvie and he was a good fifty pounds heavier than what he was now and, though some vehicle of the state as yet unknown to me, _Colher_ has been pretty much glued to the _Mestre’s_ side. I supposed it made sense as to why he might have gotten his name before me.

But still.

That didn’t make me feel better.

I also supposed that it wouldn’t have mattered quite so much if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with the frequency and hotness of Dante’s public make-out sessions with his new girlfriend Laura Nunez. I tried not to watch. 

There were so many times that I made myself look down or away or even walk away. But then, I saw his tongue go into her mouth and how he sucked on her bottom lip and how he ran his hands up into her hair from her neck and — _blammo_ — it was like superglue or super magnets or super something that was stronger than me because once I saw it the first time, I was desperately unable to quit staring whenever they were around.

Perhaps, it wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d only see them before and after classes (which is happening more often now that she’s joined classes with _Mestre Lagarto_ ). But as of September, I started high school, which was also Dante’s high school, which was also Laura’s high school, and, therefore, the best part of my time between classes and during lunch was spent restraining myself from various and sundry and totally unintentional rubbernecking activities.

Honestly, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. If I were just plain old jealous, I’d be mad or weird or angry or something that I would hope involved me simply avoiding them. If I were happy for them, I’d be…well, just that. Happy. And I’d go one with my own life and find my own person and do my own thing. As it is, though. He’s pretty perfect and she’s pretty perfect and they’re doing these pretty perfectly hot things to each other, way more than they should be doing in public and, to be honest, it made me feel like a creep. 

Especially because she wanted to set me up with her little sister Blanca, who was cute in her own right but this also made me worried because I couldn’t help think that the game would be up. _The Game_. I didn’t know what the game entailed other than it was _the_ one and that everyone knew about it and that I would be revealed as a fraud. This was also frustrating because I didn’t quite understand what it was that I was misrepresenting. Still. Fraud. Phony, fake, faker, impostor. Fraud.

If that was true, then _Mestre Lagarto_ would know.

If he knew, that was maybe why I didn’t have a name.

Maybe the universe was trying to tell me that I would never deserve one. And wasn't that a rotten thought to have right before class?

I finished putting away my street clothes and found a spot on the floor somewhere in the middle and nearer to the back. I ended up between _Colher_ and _Pau_ for the first part of practice _,_ who each burned a good ten degrees hotter than normal human beings. As a result, they burned me up, too, and turned me red as a tomato.

As a class, we warmed up. We did our herd of elephants run. We broke out into groups for smaller workouts where I helped people do back flips. Finally, we got into the roda. 

Same as always.

I was absent minded today.

I couldn’t think.

I zoned out. 

Even as I clapped and sang, I was not really there and had just about made my mind up not to play today when it happened. 

A _chamada_. 

From the _Mestre_. 

To me. 

And since there wasn’t anything wrong with the game as it was being played, no one got hit hard, no one was being stupid, that sort of thing, it meant only one thing. A test. Which meant that I needed to be attentive. None of this zoned out crap. I thought to myself:

_Okay._

_Okay, okay._

_I could handle this._

_Okay._

Super defensive. That’s how I was going to do this. Safe and defensive. Super safe and super defensive. I kept my arms up, my legs moving and my eyes peeled. But he was omniscient — all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise — and he was not happy with me holding back. He moved into an  _aú_ , a close one with his legs crunched in, and he stopped at the top in a kind of handstand but he could rotate and kick his feet out at different angles, which he did, and then he came up. And goddamn it if he wasn’t a stupid octopus. 

Not stupid.

_Not_ stupid. I would never call _Mestre_ that.

A very _smart_ and omniscient octopus.

He was close to me and in my face and he sped up his _ginga_ , which meant, like it or not, I had to as well. His kicks got closer, which meant that mine had to as well. 

_Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap._

He baited me. 

And then…I did it.

Oh, god.

I swept my foot under his at exactly the right — and which meant exactly the _wrong_ — time such that I caught the back of his ankle and swept my foot through and he didn’t have his other foot on the floor at the time…and…he…fell…on…his…ass.

Oh shit.

I stopped.

Like with my hands over my mouth, both feet on the ground, eyes wide open, fucking stopped right there. 

He was going to kill me.

He knew it.

I knew it.

Everyone knew it.

I wanted to cry big, fat tears.

Instead, I cried “I’m sorry. Oh, my god, I’m so sorry. Oh man, I didn’t mean it. Oh no. _Mestre_ , I’m so sorry, …” and on and on and on I went, in the total opposite state to oblivion that I wished I had been in as I watched him (in horror, by the way) get up in slow motion.

He reproached me with this fiery doom written all over his face, “ _Então é assim que vai ser, eh?”_

All the while, I continued in a steady stream of apologies and half-assed measures of returning to any sort of decent _ginga_ , and it seemed like minutes but I’m pretty sure that only a few more moves went by before I was not only down, I was down on my hands, with my ankles in his hands with my ass up, being drug in a backward wheelbarrow around the edge and all over the place inside of the roda.

“I know who you are now, _urso polar_. Would you look at that? My own little polar bear.”

Polar Bear.

_ Polar Bear? _

_That_ was my name? All that time I waited and he named me for some stupid mistake that ended up with my (honestly quite bulbous) ass in the air while he drug me around in front of everyone?

It didn’t even sound all that much better in Portuguese. Oohr-soo-poe-lahr. 

By the time I got up, I was beet red from the combination of abject humiliation (no thanks to myself) and blood that had rushed to my head. 

Two other players replaced us so that the game continued and I attempted to invisibly slide back into my position between _Colher_ and _Pau_ (this time, let them burn up thanks to the extra heat I emitted). But there was no hiding. I got ribbed on both sides and players from all around the circle slipped me good-natured smiles and mouthed my new name back to me, which, of course, got instant and unanimous adoption.

The roda ended but the ongoing welcome (if you could call it that) didn’t. I felt wanted and idiotic all at the same time. There were also some vague memories that roamed around in my head of something someone said the first time I had ever heard of this tradition: _No one likes their capoeira name_.

“ _Mestre_?” I found him in relative privacy near the back of the room. He turned to me with an air of practiced patience and complete attention, like he not only expected this moment but he also expected the inevitable annoyancethat would come with my next question. “Why did you name me that?”

“Why not? It’s a perfect name for you.”

“Because of the shape of my ass when it’s all spread out in the air?” I asked before thought about how bad that actually sounded when it was said out loud.

“No.” He was perplexed. Like truly perplexed. Like his eyebrows pressed together in one solid line with a hairy lightning bolt in the middle while he looked at mesideways sort of perplexed. Like that thought had never crossed his mind. Sometimes he played a bit stupid in order to trick me into thinking a certain way but this time, he was genuinely confused. “It’s because polar bears live…no, no…the word...thrive…they thrive in places that are hostile to everyone else.”

_Mestre Lagarto_ continued, “So, your assignment, _Urso Polar,_ is to figure out what kind of polar bear you’re going to be _.”_

That was not at all what I expected him to say. Nor did I expect to feel like that feeling I get in a dream where all of my teeth fall out of their own accord. I’ve never understood what I was supposed to understand from dreaming about that over and over but the one thing I was certain of is that the dream itself wasn’t a good one.

At the same time, though. 

I felt like he really saw me. He saw me so deep that he saw something I didn’t even know was there and he didn’t feel the need to run away from that secret monster inside of me. For some reason, the thought of it all made me want to crumble into pieces right there in front of everybody.

But also...

I didn’t need to crumble to pieces because he’d just given me a key to some secret thing I needed to go find. 

Like a quest. 

Maybe it was kind of stupid to assume it was so big but it felt like this thing could be something like Excaliber or even just the scabbard, which would keep me from bleeding all over the place despite being stabbed. Or maybe the thing to be found was a testament to an invisible sovereignty that was already there and in having been long since forgotten this key was needed to help it wake up.

Whatever that means. 


End file.
